Good afternoon,
General question, recent all grain brew I did, the grains used were roughly 6-9 months since purchased, Does this effect the efficiency of the brew?
Missed my target O.G.of 1.065 by a considerable amount 1.037 @70F.
System used: Brewzilla
Mash was held for 1Hr
Fly sparge was also done over 1Hr.
Thank you
A bit more information would help.
were you recirculating?
did you use rice hulls?
did you have a stuck mash ( water is not flowing over the grains and draining, but rather water sits on top of the grains) ?
how often did you stir / reseat the grains?
I agree with previous commenters, the crush probably wasn’t good enough for an all in one / brew in a bag system. These require a more fine crush than normal, or about a credit card width.
I’ve brewed with year old ... sometimes more grains and the only time I’ve missed gravity by that much was on a Roggenbier (more than 50% rye malt). I didn’t use enough rice hulls and just could. not. get. that mash flowing. extraction was poor and so was the resulting fermented liquid, whatever it was.
you say you mashed for an hour. Was the mash finished?
if you don’t have a refractometer, get one and use it during the mash.
mash until you make your numbers, not for a set period of time.
An hour for the sparge is fine, but if your mash extraction was poor, you’re only thinning out an already thin liquid.
I’m brewing an APA now, and been mashing 90 minutes already- I keep getting increasing gravity readings. Typically when I get 2 consecutive similar readings, I mash out.